


Tracing the Rete Mirabile

by genarti



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Era, Friendship, Gen, Les Amis de l'ABC - Freeform, Politics, other Amis discussed but not onscreen, talking piffle
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-24
Updated: 2013-04-24
Packaged: 2017-12-09 09:48:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/772805
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/genarti/pseuds/genarti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Shortly after Enjolras's visit to the Barrière du Maine, he and two of his closest friends discuss a number of subjects, including: politics, the cholera, interior decoration, politics, the theater, politics, Grantaire, and politics.</p><p>Or: Enjolras, Combeferre, and Courfeyrac's conversational priorities in action.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tracing the Rete Mirabile

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to ryfkah for betaing, and to ryfkah and sath both for cheerleading!

Enjolras knocked on the door with two sharp double raps, waited a moment, and turned the knob. He knew by the unlocked door that Combeferre was within; Combeferre, who had been reading in a chair by the unlit stove, glanced up with a smile of greeting.

"Back from the Cougourde, I see."

"Yes." The day was warm; Enjolras hung his coat by the door, and went to sit on Combeferre's unmade bed. The other chair was at his desk, and less convenient for conversation. "Their spirits are high, their preparations in place, the bulls chafe at their ropes and wait only for the sign to stampede. Tell me of Picpus."

"Likewise reassuring." Combeferre set his book on his knee, turning his attention to Enjolras. "Do you want all the details of our conversation, or merely a summary?"

"As you see fit. Your judgment is sound."

"The people there are solid. A little fiercer than I should like, to be honest, even allowing for Girardiu's personal inclination to see everything in the light of war. I suppose we can blame that on the memento mori in their midst. Such things inspire timidity in the melancholic, and greater courage in the choleric and sanguine. I cautioned Girardiu to be wary -- to gather the people, but to hold his men in line, and wait till the day when Paris acts in accord. Overreadiness does no one good, if it results in a powder flash before the gun is charged."

"Very true -- but the time is near, Combeferre -- revolution is gathering, unrest is on everyone's lips in the streets. Too much caution is as dangerous as too little."

"Would you have me speak of philosophy, or of Girardiu in Picpus?"

Enjolras made a gesture. "I am rebuked. You're right, he's rash at times, though it concerns me less than it does you. Pray continue."

"There is little more to tell of the conversation itself, but I have figures for you. Twelve more guns bought, and three more men with their own. Thirty boxes of cartridges, besides last month's tally. They are all putting together money, a few sous apiece, more from those who can give it, to buy powder and shot. He asked after a printer as well; their usual died of the cholera last week, and the other took ill with it yesterday. I gave him the name of Madame Durand. She is nearest to them and always discreet."

All Paris was keenly aware of the cholera's danger, its lurking miasmas and unpredictable strikes: the poor whispered of poisoned wells and aristo plots, the bourgeois flung themselves into whirlwinds of gaiety in defiance of death and fell blue-faced into its skeletal embrace, the rich found urgent reason to summer in the country and hoped without certainty to dodge the thunderbolt, all was panic and frenzy; wives saw husbands die, parents saw children; neighbors breathed the same air, drank from the same wells, lived or did not without pattern; some recovered on broth and bleeding and prayers; others were given broth and bled and prayed over, and yet passed to God's final rest. These two young men, whose lives and hearts were given over to the sufferings and the succor of France's citizens, were no less aware of the death that shadowed their city. But Enjolras could draw himself to a lofty height and view Paris's sorrows as an eagle might; he saw with fierce calculations the smoke of smoldering discontent, the flares of popular grief and fear, the anger of a people already ground low by backbreaking work and no money for bread. Combeferre could follow his friend's gaze, but his own eyes rested lower. He worked at a free clinic, bled starving patients, prescribed broth, prescribed water to those who had no broth to give, watched men and women die under his hands.

Enjolras folded his fingers together. "She may be overwhelmed with work, however, if two shops are closed."

"Of course." Combeferre grimaced. "But what else is to be done? I could not give out every name. And such troubles afflict everyone not afflicted with worse."

"No." Enjolras, if nearer, would have pressed a hand to his friend's; perhaps some knowledge of the sentiment passed between them in any case, for Combeferre dropped his gaze as if in acquiescence. "But we will bring work to the others by preference, if Picpus has need of Madame Durand, or bring our drafts with more time before distribution."

Combeferre managed a smile. "That will be harder on you than on any of us, my friend. You will have to restrain yourself from carrying out half the emendations you think of when a draft ought to be finished."

"I will merely endeavor to think of them earlier," said Enjolras, amused. Combeferre snorted, and a short silence fell between them.

It was Enjolras who broke it. "I will have to send someone tomorrow to the Barrière du Maine," he said. "A busier day, and I had hoped to avoid it, but many of them will nonetheless be at the domino tables. Enough to ascertain the mood of the flock, I hope."

Combeferre frowned. "My dear fellow, wait until Grantaire has reported in, surely. He is unreliable, yes, but as truly so in his unreliability as in anything else; sometimes he executes a plan as promised."

"He need not report. I stopped by; it was on my way."

He was interrupted by a knock, the same double tap he had used himself. Courfeyrac's fashionable hat poked through the doorway.

"There you are," said Courfeyrac. "Enjolras, you ought to move in here; it would save your friends the trouble of stopping by two rooms to find you both. I invariably start with the wrong one. Tomorrow, I will come here, and you will both be at the Rue de la Poterie instead. Besides, Combeferre decorates better than you do, by which I mean to say he decorates at all. When we must set our standards so low, even an anatomical cod makes the difference."

"I have all the decoration I care for," Enjolras said, untroubled by this. A map of France under the National Convention, another of current Paris, much annotated in pencil, a cheap copy of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, and a rotating crop of pamphlets in progress tucked into strings pinned to the plaster: such were the ornaments of Enjolras' living space. "Two blocks is not so far. I have faith you will manage."

"Besides, we should lose the storage space, if we followed your proposal," Combeferre pointed out, setting his book aside with a pressed fern to mark the page.

"True," Courfeyrac allowed. He crossed his arms on the back of Combeferre's chair, the better to simultaneously lean on it in a fashionable attitude and peer at what Combeferre had been reading. Combeferre obligingly rotated the book to better display the spine. "Must you have an answer for everything, Combeferre? (Guizot, really? Even to argue against him, I wonder that you can bear such drivel. I certainly hope you didn't pay good money for it.) But I cannot argue with the proper disposition of seditious materials. Our poor legs and wings will bear the strain in their service. Not to mention their free time, which is what I came to ask about. Have either of you an interest in joining me to see 'La Tour de Nesle' at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique tonight? I realize that this is only a slightly likelier prospect than if I were inviting Marius along -- although you are infinitely livelier company than he, poor fellow, still neither of you address fun with the slightest familiarity despite all your friends' kind introductions -- and with less excuse than Marius, I may say, since he can plead low funds and stiff pride when he's willing to reply to another human being. But you will see by this that I am desperate as well as an incurable sanguine, and perhaps take pity. I faithfully promised Prouvaire to accompany him, but nearly everyone else has other engagements, so if you do not take pity on me it will be Prouvaire and Bahorel and I, and the evening will end in such an outpouring of Romantic fervor as l'Ambigu-Comique has not seen since the last time the Petit Cénacle fellows got drunk there. I fear a riot in defense of Truth, Beauty, the Sacred Grotesque, and Bahorel's prodigious boredom if the lead actors have not mysteriously acquired talent since Mathieu Aguillard saw it Tuesday. Will you not spare your dear friends?"

Combeferre had listened to this outpouring with tolerant affection, but returned only, "I have a shift at the clinic tomorrow before class."

"And I two letters to write to the editors of _La Tribune_ and _Le National_ ," said Enjolras, equally heartless, "and no interest in Dumas' royal scandal besides. Try Lègle, he was speaking of it earlier."

"Ha, I knew you were listening to our nonsense." Enjolras smiled faintly, but did not reply. "But no, it will not stand, or rather he will not -- he has twisted his ankle -- our eagle missed a landing from the curb. Jolllly insists that he must stay at home and keep it still lest he be unable to walk for a week, though Bossuet assured me that he walked home without the slightest trouble. But I am neither doctor nor medical student nor Joly, and as such my prescription of a diverting evening goes wholly ignored."

"I will look at it tomorrow, if he likes," Combeferre said, without much concern. For all his many misfortunes, Bossuet largely avoided serious injury, and Joly could be counted upon to regard any illness or wound with at least twice as much worry as it deserved.

Enjolras was frowning. "Is it serious? Bossuet will laugh away anything, and Joly worry at anything. But I had thought to send him on an errand tomorrow. I would send Bahorel, but he often joins the fellows in Lenoir on Mondays."

"Truly, I have no idea. He spent the whole time seated. See if he shows his face at the Musain -- I would say in your lecture in the morning, but we both know better than to expect such a thing. But, Enjolras, what errand do you need? Tonight we outdid Aeolus's winds and flitted to nine corners of the city. Did you learn of trouble from the gentle breezes?"

Enjolras shook his head. As chief, he kept in his head certain names and details, but among the foremost lieutenants of the Amis de l'A B C, few secrets were kept; and never the shape of the smoldering embers whose inevitable eruption into conflagration these fierce young men all anticipated, with dread and hope mingled in proportions according to their characters. "No, all's well with Picpus and our friends of Aix. I need another to go to the Barrière du Maine. I stopped by on my way to the Cougourde." Exasperation in Enjolras expressed itself as a haughty sternness, and it was that disdain that marked his woman's face now. "Instead of drawing them from drink and dominoes to remembrance of a greater cause and the coming dawn, Grantaire chose to join them in their idleness -- he was deep in a domino table at Richefeu's, shouting of nothing but the game."

Combeferre and Courfeyrac winced, nearly in unison. "Perhaps," offered Courfeyrac, with more in his voice of duty than of hope, "he worked around to his purpose later, or remembered it."

"Perhaps, and I will be glad if so. But I doubt it. He was halfway to drunk already."

"Well," said Courfeyrac after a moment, "I will ask him how it went when I see him. It may come better from me than from you, Enjolras, whatever answer he has to give. I'd stop by his rooms -- perhaps I will anyway -- though he's in them so little that it's rarely of use. If I see him tonight, maybe he'll consent to being dragged to the theater for a distraction."

"I wish you would." Enjolras grimaced. "He claims to listen to me--" Combeferre and Courfeyrac shared a look "--but if so, his method of listening serves either of us little, since he will only mock and deride. I confess, my friends, I have no idea how to proceed to a more useful result."

"I'm not certain you can," said Combeferre, not without a certain sorrowful sympathy. "You of any of us, my friend. Until he has a desire to hear, even the most eloquent words will not avail him."

"And that desire," Enjolras said, annoyed, "Grantaire certainly does not have." He pushed himself from the bed so that he could pace a few steps forward and back, and came to lean against the wall near the stove, just under the anatomical cod Courfeyrac had so faintly praised. "Enough of this. Lègle is injured, perhaps enough to prohibit an errand -- I hope not, but I must assume so; Bahorel, likely busy; Marius hasn't shown his face at a meeting in months; it's well out of Feuilly's way, and he has a stricter schedule than the rest of us. Prouvaire and you, Courfeyrac, would both match that crowd as ill as Marius, and with less reason to ask it if we're compelled to this delay anyway."

"Joly and I both have lectures tomorrow," Combeferre added, "though I could try to find the time if you need."

"Thank you, but no need. I can do it myself, if our Bossuet can't. I have nothing I cannot miss."

"And thus," said Courfeyrac, amused, "we see how Marius Pontmercy passed his bar ahead of you. I am convinced one could measure his interest in government in a thimble and have room to spare, at least if one discounted his curious fixation on Bonaparte, but he has an admirable ability to focus to the exclusion of all else, however foolishly he may apply that ability. Not that you do not, Enjolras, but you cannot dispute that it's never directed where your professors would wish it. Well! You will want to hear of the Polytechnicians, and then I must be on my way. Unless I can convince you to accompany me after all? No? Hard-hearted and joyless, the both of you, but luckily I like you anyway. Our red-striped friends do well, you'll be glad to hear. Here is a list of their latest acquisitions, which I will leave you to copy out and send along. Ah, Bonaparte never gave republicans such an unwitting gift as L'École Polytechnique!" ("Carnot and Monge gave it," corrected Enjolras, and was ignored.) "A school for gunners and engineers where stout-hearted fellows can learn crafts of war, and chafe to apply them to good purpose, right in the Quartier Latin; it's wonderful. They await the signal as do we; they gather arms; they are prepared, no, eager to seize liberty like the creative lads they are, when their schoolmasters try to lock the troublesome children in the nursery."

Enjolras's eyes blazed. "The people of France have tasted freedom, and they are not content to be locked away They are given sawdust and told they have bread; given a king and told the government represents them; given a prison and told it's the wide street of constitutional reform. They are not taken in. They will rise, they are rising already; the river is running high at its banks. The day of the cloudburst will soon dawn, and bring the flood to Paris."

"You are right," returned Combeferre, in a tone of affectionate caution. "But as we have discussed, that only makes it more imperative that we think beyond the dawn to the day ahead. To speak of overthrowing the order, very well; I agree; it needs to be overthrown. But revolution without a clear plan for what follows will bring France another Louis-Philippe Orleans at best, anarchy at worst. If the time for action is at hand, then so is the time for planning what follows, and planning it in detail. We may not be consulted personally -- we may not live to be consulted -- but if we are asked, we must have answers ready to give."

"We will be asked," Enjolras said. "If we live. If only as citizens of France; all citizens have the right to speak in their government, as they have the right and moral duty to fight for its creation. I ally myself with Robespierre: there are no passive citizens."

"Then--"

"And that," broke in Courfeyrac with a laugh, "is my cue, citizens, to leave you. Don't look so disgruntled, Enjolras. If I stay, I will spend the next three hours in merry wrangling over constitutional formulations and every moral philosophy known to man, and break my faithful promise to the men I am meeting at the Théâtre de l'Ambigu-Comique in an hour. You will have to wrangle without me; I feel sure that if you find yourselves pining for me -- as of course you will -- you know my mind enough to make my arguments for me against each other. I advise it, in fact, although I would advise it even more strongly could I stay to witness. Good evening, Combeferre; good evening, Enjolras." This last as he clasped each of them by the hand in turn. "Is my hair--? Ah good; I trust your little mirror's word, Combeferre, as I do not trust your discernment -- you really ought to learn to use curling papers. I will see you tomorrow at lunch, Enjolras, and tell you if I have learned anything more of interest."

He closed the door on the sound of Combeferre quoting Anacharsis Clootz and went down the stairs with a merry step, tipping his hat to the conciergess; and since Courfeyrac's prediction of the argument's scope and duration was entirely correct, we shall leave them there.

**Author's Note:**

> A thousand thanks to [Carpe Horas](http://www.chanvrerie.net/), which helped me to fill in a disproportionate number of my [research this!] placeholders. 
> 
> Historical notes:
> 
> \- The title is a very dorky circulatory system allusion; I'm not sorry, although I probably should be. The rete mirabile, or "wondrous net," is when a single blood vessel divides into a bunch of capillaries and then reunites. As explained in some detail [here](http://encyclopedia2.thefreedictionary.com/Rete+Mirabile), Galen thought humans had one in the neck as part of the carotid artery. (We don't. They're a bigger deal in frogs and fish.) Galen's theories were still formative in 1830s medicine, although I don't think this particular one was, since it's easily disproved by dissection.
> 
> \- The theater Courfeyrac mentions was real, as was the play by Alexandre Dumas père, which premiered in 1832. I have no idea if it had premiered by April, or if it was ever put on at that theater. Nor do I have any idea if the artists of Le Petit Cénacle were known for getting drunk and rowdy at the theater in 1832, although I gather they were generally known as eccentric and bohemian.
> 
> \- The other revolutionaries mentioned are mostly made up. 
> 
> \- A lot of this research comes from hasty googling, so please let me know if I'm misrepresenting anything in the details! One of the simultaneous joys and despairs of this fandom is how much there is to learn.


End file.
